The necessity for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and one-to-one marketing has recently received a great deal of attention due to factors such as shortening of the product life as varieties of products are produced, and customer's orientation to customized services as the use of the Internet spreads. These methods try to raise the customer satisfaction, win new customers, and keep customers.
One-to-one marketing is a kind of database marketing which creates a database of individual attribute information including the age, gender, hobby, preference, and purchase log of a customer, analyzes the contents of the database, and makes a proposal complying with customer's needs. A typical method of this marketing is variable printing. These days, a variable printing system which customizes a document for each customer and outputs the document has been developed along with the development of the DTP (Desk Top Publishing) technique and the pervasion of digital printing apparatuses. The variable printing system needs to create a customized document in which contents of a different amount for each customer are optimally laid out.
Generally, when such a customized document is to be created by the variable printing system, containers are laid out in a document. The container is a drawing area for drawing contents (drawing contents (e.g., an image and text)), and is also called a field area.
A desired customized document (called a document template) can be created by performing work of laying out containers in a document and associating a database with the layout (associating various contents in the database with the containers). The contents of the customized document can be changed (made variable) by properly switching contents in the containers in the customized document (changing the association). Such a document is called a variable data document, and a printing system using the variable data document is a variable printing system.
In a conventional variable printing system, the size of a container associated with a text or image serving as contents is fixed. When contents in the database are inserted (flowed) into a container and the data amount is larger than the container size, the following problems arise. That is, if the data is a text, overlapping of the text occurs. If the data is an image, clipping of the image by the container occurs. When the data amount is smaller than the container size, no proper display may be obtained such that a gap appears between the container and its internal contents.
In order to solve these problems, as another technique of changing the layout, a technique of downsizing a container adjacent to a target container when the target container increases in size is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-129658 (paragraph 0049, FIG. 8) “Layout Designing Apparatus”.
“Document Processing Apparatus and Processing” in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-092820 (paragraph 0051, FIG. 17) discloses a document processing apparatus having a function of changing a layout (holding the interval between objects) by using intersection inspection based on coarse drawing. One of features of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-092820 is to display a final layout result on a custom browser.
When the variable printing technique is applied to a business system for, e.g., issuing a slip, a document template is generally created and changed by a specific person in charge, and managed by a specific system administrator. This is because, if the document template can be changed and saved by anyone, the user cannot grasp a document template for use and is confused, or the print format changes to make the preparation of the document template insignificant.
In a system via a network (e.g., a client-server system or Web system), a document template is registered in an administration server. If necessary, the document template is distributed to and utilized by a computer in which a layout engine for implementing an automatic layout system runs. In a system having a plurality of stand-alone computers which are not connected to a network, a document template is stored in a storage medium such as a CD-ROM, distributed by a physical means, e.g., by mail, and utilized.
A computer in which the layout engine runs merges a distributed document template with contents, lays out the contents, and previews or prints the layout result. The user generally uses a layout preview application which can preview and print contents, but cannot change a document template and contents. When a layout editing application capable of changing a document template is used, the changed document template cannot be registered in the system. The changed document template must be saved in a local computer or discarded, and it becomes difficult to generate the same document again.
In a variable printing system using an automatic layout process, if the design of a document template is incomplete or contents which are not assumed in design exist, an unintended layout result is output. It is, however, difficult to create a document template which provides a satisfactory layout regardless of contents.
If a layout cannot be satisfied upon previewing and confirming the layout result of contents before printing, the document template may be modified, or contents may be changed, registered in the database, merged again with the document template, and laid out. However, modification of a document template and modification of data in the database pose security problems, and in general, a general user is not authorized to perform modification.
A general user cannot easily perform modification even in a situation in which he wants to slightly increase the image size because an image is slightly small, or when he has a close look at a preview result and finds out an error in the name of the billing destination, he wants to correct the name and print.
The following problems arise when the automatic layout system is implemented by a system via a network (e.g., a client-server system or Web system). When the user wants to temporarily replace contents such as an image contained in a layout result in outputting the layout result, he must ask in advance the system administrator to modify and register contents, which puts a burden on the user. If an arbitrary user is permitted an operation including modification and registration of contents, the operation may influence the entire system. Thus, it is virtually impossible to temporarily replace an operation by a given user.